Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Mesh in Second LIfe®

Mesh came to SL™ last week. For those not familiar with it, that means that, for the first time, we can now upload models that we make in other 3D applications directly to SL, with their UV Maps and everything else intact.

It's a huge change, and like all other changes in SL, it's not without controversy and confusion. To help alleviate some of that, I've made a mesh object for people to experiment with, and 3 videos to help explain how to work with it.

The first one talks about what mesh is, what Prim Equivalency is, what LOD is (and how to adjust the LOD you see using renderVolumeLODfactor,) what UV Maps are, and how to save a texture from SL onto your own hard drive.

The second one explains how to use the UV Map to easily put a texture on the plant stand.

The third one shows how to bring your finished textures back into SL, and put them back on the model.

If you are an SL resident, and you want to try playing with the plant stand yourself, you can get it at the SL Marketplace.